


Rewards

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Chapter 208 spoilers, Crushes, M/M, Mentions of KinKage - Freeform, Mentions of kagehina, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7141682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama Tobio thinks crushes are dumb, even if he's had three powerful ones he can remember. One that he ruined for himself, one that someone else crushed, and one that grows on him when he isn't paying attention. It's the last one, though, that is the most rewarding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewards

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Kageyama Rarepair Week Day 4: Falling in Love.
> 
> This. Is. Not. Ship. Hate. This is an exercise of showing how Kageyama, at different stages in his life, deals with the people he falls for. It's only listed as YamaKage, however, because it's the only one that becomes an actual relationship.

Crushes are dumb.

Kageyama Tobio will say that to anyone and everyone who asks him until he turns blue and passes out. They’re illogical, annoying, disruptive to more important things, and they are so, so lonely.

His first crush is a tall boy in middle school with stupid hair. Kageyama doesn’t know why he likes Kindaichi Yuutarou, outside of maybe his pleasing face or the fact that he will sit next to Kageyama on the bus when no one else will talk to the shy, gangly first year.

Maybe it’s because Kindaichi is strong and vital, able to do things most of their teammates can’t do. Maybe that’s what makes Kageyama to push him to greater heights, to greater things beyond the hell that is Kitagawa Daiichi. Maybe it’s what pushes Kindaichi over the edge and leaves him alone again, confused an alone on the court, even when there are five other blue and white jerseys just a few meters away.

And then there is Karasuno and Hinata Shouyou, that loud rubber band of a boy who can fly like the birds who lend the school their name. He is everything Kageyama is not: talkative, stupid, mindlessly ambitious, and uncoordinated.

But all of these are overshadowed by the reality of him. High as the sun and twice as bright, Hinata burns Kageyama’s eyes but he still won’t look away because together, they can go higher than ever. Together, they’re incredible.

Yet Hinata is just as far away as Kindaichi, demanding to surpass Kageyama at every moment, working his way into spaces Kageyama has earned through his own merit. It’s Kageyama who battled his way out of his friendless malaise and into the Karasuno family. It’s Kageyama who is issued an invitation to an All-Japan training camp to strengthen his body for the likelihood of representing his country on the world stage.

Why is Hinata there at the Miyagi camp, interloping?

When Tsukishima sends him the text, only for Kindaichi and Kunimi to do the same less than an hour later, Kageyama is _angry_.

It’s a selfish act, Kageyama thinks as he turns his thoughts away from his uninvited teammate and back to his own distant goals. Selfish for both of them, because Hinata isn’t welcome and Kageyama wants to do this thing on his own. To make sure that he is the person he’s worked all year to be and not the product of his senpai nursing him through everything.

So as he runs lap after lap around the frigid gym in Tokyo, Kageyama feels that crush wither and die with the sweat that pours from his body.

His third year comes too fast, and before he knows it, Kageyama is vice-captain of his beloved volleyball team. He knows now that he is worthy of this honor, that he’s worked long and hard to earn the respect shining up at him from the watchful eyes of his newest batch of kouhai. He is the setter and a captain; they say ‘yes, sir’ when they speak to him, but Kageyama never corrects them no matter how strange it sounds.

“I think they like you,” Yamaguchi, the captain of the team remarks as the flock of first years plow around the gym running laps. “That’s good.”

Kageyama nods at this, noting the way his chest warms when Yamaguchi talks to him, but it isn’t hard to tell that this time is different. Yamaguchi’s smiles are not rare at all, but certain ones are only for Kageyama.

It had come in a flash for both of them, a sweaty remnant of a hard practice session after hours, with Yamaguchi pounding serve after serve until he can place them at will, and Kageyama worried just enough to ask him to stop.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” he’d roared as he wrenched the ball from Yamaguchi’s hands. “You’re not this stupid!”

“Leave me alone.” Yamaguchi stormed after the ball. “I can’t give up. Not now.”

Kageyama shook his head at this. “You’re not giving up! You’re taking care of yourself, now stop!”

“No!” Yamaguchi kicked the ball cart and sat on the floor with a sniffle. “I can’t, I can’t —” His head hung between his legs, a sight Kageyama can swear is burned in his brain forever. “Please don’t leave me behind.”

Eyes wide, Kageyama stared at Yamaguchi, waiting for the team captain’s orders, hoping that someone would tell him what to do. “I don’t understand.”

Then Yamaguchi had kissed him, and it all made sense.

So they climbed together, captain and vice, to the top of the team. They lead their Crows with valor and bravery because Kageyama doesn’t think Yamaguchi has it in him to be any other way, and they tear through the Inter-Highs side by side, arms wrapped around each other as his first crush wilts on the other side of the net and his second jumps for joy behind him.

And it’s all okay, Kageyama thinks, because they are all lessons learned for a test with limitless rewards.

 


End file.
